Multicenter evaluation of rapid BACpro® II for the accurate identification of microorganisms directly from blood cultures using MALDI-TOF MS

The identification of microorganisms directly from blood cultures using MALDI-TOF MS has been shown to be the most impacting application of this methodology. In this study, a novel commercial method was evaluated in four clinical microbiology laboratories. Positive blood culture samples (n = 801) were processed using a rapid BACpro® II kit and then compared with the routine gold standard. A subset of monomicrobial BCs (n = 560) were analyzed in parallel with a Sepsityper® Kit (Bruker Daltonics, Bremen, Germany) and compared with the rapid BACpro® II kit. In addition, this kit was also compared with two different in-house methods. Overall, 80.0% of the monomicrobial isolates (609/761; 95% CI 71.5–88.5) were correctly identified by the rapid BACpro® II kit at the species level (92.3% of the Gram negative and 72.4% of the Gram positive bacteria). The comparison with the Sepsityper® Kit showed that the rapid BACpro® II kit generated higher rates of correct species-level identification for all categories (p > 0.0001), except for yeasts identified with score values > 1.7. It also proved superior to the ammonium chloride method (p > 0.0001), but the differential centrifugation method allowed for higher rates of correct identification for Gram negative bacteria (p > 0.1). The percentage of accurate species-level identification of Gram positive bacteria was particularly noteworthy in comparison with other commercial and in-house methods

Transhumance et estivage en Occident

Des milliers de bêtes trottinant dans le tintement des sonnailles ont construit une image mythique des déplacements de troupeaux. Si aujourd'hui l'âge d'or d'un élevage fortement spéculatif semble révolu, de nouvelles préoccupations patrimoniales ou environnementalistes redonnent toute leur actualité aux enjeux de la transhumance et de l'estivage. Au-delà de l'étonnante variété des types d'élevage, l'étude des acteurs sociaux, de la construction des territoires, de l’organisation étatique ont été au cœur des interrogations portant sur un large espace géographique incluant le Maghreb. Les approches croisées d'historiens, d'archéologues, de juristes, de géographes et d'ethnologues contribuent à la richesse des analyses de ce volume